Photo courtesy of Iowa News Service
According to a news story from Iowa News Service, new data from the National Education Association showed despite a series of pay raises, teacher salaries in Iowa are still below the national average.
Iowa teachers are now paid an average annual salary of a little more than $65,000, a raise of just over 4.5%, according to the national data but the raise only boosted pay for about a third of Iowa State Education Association teachers.
Melissa Peterson, legislative and policy director for the association, said the raise doesn’t do anything to help longtime educators and makes legislation designed to help longtime teachers irrelevant.
“They may have already been making $65,000 a year,” Peterson said. “So passing a law that would allow somebody with 12-plus years of experience to be paid a minimum of $62,000 doesn’t do anything to benefit them.”
Iowa spends a little more than $14,000 on each of Iowa’s 504,000 students in a state where enrollment continues to decline.
Peterson noted through House File 2754, known as the private and charter school bill, Iowa is also following a national trend toward making more state money available for nonpublic schools and homeschooling through what are known as Education Savings Accounts.
“Which would include elements that would allow a homeschool instructor to charge tuition and fees,” Peterson said. “Which I don’t know about you, but to me, doesn’t say homeschool.”
Now in its third year, Iowa is projected to spend about $314 million on Education Savings Accounts, more than double what the state initially projected. Between 40,000 and 42,000 Iowa students are enrolled in the accounts.
